Layton's The Canons of our Fathers is, in a myriad of ways, a great – and most welcome – contribution to the field of Shenoute studies and to the research on the ‘social history of early Christian monasticism’ (p. 9). Shenoute was the head (tenure: c.385–465 ce) of a large monastic federation in Upper Egypt. Layton claims that the hereby published corpus of Shenoute's rules is one of the largest and oldest corpora in its kind. The volume has two main parts, respectively titled (I) ‘The Nature of the Rules’ (pp. 1–85) and (II) ‘Corpus of Monastic Rules’ (pp. 87–359). The first part unfolds in five sections – an introduction and four subsequent chapters, consecutively focusing on the historical context of the rules (chapter 1), the corpus of the rules (chapter 2), the monastic life (chapter 3) and, last, the experience of a monastic identity in relation to the rules (chapter 4). The second part consists of Shenoute's rules, both in the original Coptic and in Layton's English translation.

The first part aims to provide the contextual and historical framework for interpreting the rules in the second part. The introduction presents first a concise chronology of the rules’ origin and second juxtaposes and contrasts the two types of monasticism, eremitic and cenobitic, to clarify terminology before moving to the exposition in chapters 1–4. Layton, in chapter 1, gives a brief and tentative account of the federation's early history. He focuses especially on the knowledge lacuna concerning the founder of the Red (northern) Monastery, since it has been well established by Stephen Emmel in Shenoute's Literary Corpus (Peeters, 2004), and by Layton himself who the leaders of the White Monastery were from its foundation up to Shenoute's tenure as leader of the federation. Based on the previously unpublished ‘Naples Fragment’, which Layton has integrally incorporated into his first chapter, he convincingly argues that the originally eremitic Red Monastery was founded by Pshoi and was under his care when it entered, as a cenobium, into a federation with Pcol's cenobitic White Monastery.

Layton's following chapter revolves around the content, form and authors of the rules. He posits that Shenoute inherited a smaller selection of rules when he became head of the federation and later extended the corpus further with his own rules. According to Layton's work, some of these inherited rules came directly from Pachomius, whilst others were written by Pcol (and maybe Ebonh). The third chapter successfully attempts to give an insight into the everyday praxis of the federation. Layton's concise thematic descriptions of a wide variety of aspects of that daily praxis, ranging from the buildings used, the organisation of the liturgy and the relationship between the three cenobia, are saturated with references to the rules in part II. Besides the inherent value of such a reconstruction, these descriptions provide a convenient starting place for further research. The fourth and final chapter of the first part traces the evidence for the ‘process for monastic resocialization’ (p. 78), positing that entry to the monastery required ‘a total replacement’ of the monk's old world by a completely new one (p. 80).

The second part of the book contains the 595 rules Layton found in Shenoute's corpus (rules 1–557), in works of ‘Uncertain Attribution’ (rules 558–81) and some in Besa (rules 582–95). On the left-hand page, Layton gives an edited version of the Coptic text, whilst on the facing page his translation of the Coptic is presented. After every rule in Coptic, he provides the reader with editorial information about that particular rule: in which codex the rule is to be found, where the manuscript is kept and whether the text has previously been published elsewhere. The Coptic text has no extensive ‘critical apparatus’, but Layton does helpfully comment on some of the codicological challenges and his emendations. A ‘Concordance of Manuscript References and Rule Numbers’ follows the 595 rules, giving the reader an overview of which rules originate in what manuscript.

One should be aware that Layton does not translate all of the canons and other works he uses, but only the rules contained in them. He does follow the order of the canons however, starting with the rules in book I and ending with those in book IX, followed by those in the other smaller corpora. Layton also indicates how one rule relates to the next – either following directly, with an interval of text or with a lacuna in the codex – with regard to its position in the original manuscript. In conclusion, Layton has successfully published a very readable, practical, diligently written and well-structured volume, which will hopefully reach its intended goal: to further enable scholars to research the dynamics of early Christian monasticism.